Did We Just Get Snowden 2.0

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Three years ago, Edward Snowden absconded highly classified materials, embarrassing the consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the Obama administration with revelations about domestic and foreign surveillance on the American people.

Now another Booz Allen Hamilton employee allegedly made off with more of the NSA’s highly sensitive intelligence and the FBI has secretly arrested the former contractor.

The FBI released a statement:

“The FBI secretly arrested a National Security Agency contractor in recent weeks and is investigating whether he stole and disclosed highly classified computer codes developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments, according to several senior law enforcement and intelligence officials. …

The information believed stolen by this contractor — who like Mr. Snowden worked for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which is responsible for building and operating many of the agency’s most sensitive cyberoperations — appears to be different in nature from Mr. Snowden’s theft.

The contractor arrested in recent weeks is suspected of taking the highly classified ‘source code’ developed by the agency to break into computer systems of adversaries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Two officials said that some of the information the contractor is suspected of taking was dated.”

That’s obscenely embarrassing for the NSA.

The Booz Allen Hamilton employee was identified as Harold T. Martin III of Maryland according to a criminal complaint filed.

Martin was charged with theft of government property and the unauthorized removal of classified documents.

The FBI raided Martin’s home on August 27th and apparently, it was an all-out assault.

A neighbor, Murray Bennett, said that two-dozen FBI agents wearing “military-style uniforms” and armed with long guns stormed the house. Later they escorted Martin out in handcuffs.

The FBI discovered thousands of pages of documents, dozens of computers or other electronic devices at his home and in his car, and according to court documents nearly all of it was classified.

To compare Martin to Snowden and declare him “Snowden 2.0”, they also discovered classified documents that had been posted online, including computer codes.

Under interrogation, however, Martin denied having taken any such documents and posting them online.

But then he later admitted to authorities that he knew he was not authorized to have the materials.

Martin told the FBI agents that,

“he knew what he had done was wrong and that he should not have done it because he knew it was unauthorized.”

The Justice Department was forced to unseal the court documents after The New York Times notified the government it intended to publish the story.

Martin’s lawyers issued a statement,

“We have not seen any evidence. But what we know is that Hal Martin loves his family and his country. There is no evidence that he intended to betray his country.”

This could be the start of a new line of unclassified documents spilling over for the American public to see.

The Obama administration will suffer another major setback in light of this new scandal, and consequently, it could damage Hillary Clinton’s bid for president.

After Snowden disclosed his unauthorized material, the Obama administration put measures in place to prevent the unauthorized disclosures of classified information, which have obviously not panned out.

Snowden commented on the story through a tweet,

“This is huge. Did the FBI secretly arrest the person behind the reports NSA sat on huge flaws in US products?”

The United States government kept it a secret from you and let’s hope we find out why soon.